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California to GOP: Drop dead

The Republican Party is dead in California, thank goodness. Prior to last November’s election, Republicans had only 14 Congressional representatives in the state, out of a total of 53. Now, after the election, they hold only seven.

Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle had a front-page story on one Republican politician who was fired by her constituents in November, despite the fact that she’s pro-choice, pro-same sex marriage, pro-DACA, pro-gun control and pro-climate change research and legislation. Catharine Baker represented a bedroom community just east of Oakland and Berkeley. She sat in the State Assembly (where Democrats now enjoy a “giga-majority,” meaning they have more than a two-thirds supermajority). In the Chronicle article, Baker was honest about her party’s status in the nation’s most populous state. Supporting Trump “is a path to death for the Republican Party,” she declared; if Republicans can’t figure out a way to deal with Trump, “we are done for in California.”

But, of course, the Republican Party cannot figure out a way to deal with Trump; they are “done for in California,” at least for the foreseeable future. And as America becomes increasingly non-white, non-Christian, non-rural and younger, the Republican Party may well be “done for” throughout the country.

Republicans
seem not to understand the dire peril they’re in. You have an extreme
rightwinger like Travis Allen, who represented a conservative Orange County
district in the Assembly until he dropped out in order to run for Governor last
year. Allen, who never had a chance although he thought he did, finished a
dismal fourth (Lieutenant-Governor Gavin Newsom won), exemplifies everything
Californians hate about Republicans. He’s anti-same sex marriage, anti-choice,
believes climate change is “absolute nonsense,”
anti-immigrant, and is a “Second Amendment” nationalist. Like most Republicans,
he’s a paranoid: “He opposes
full-day kindergarten,” the Chronicle
reported last year, “in part to keep
children from being ‘indoctrinated’ by liberal curricula.”

He has the backing of the Tea Party (or what’s left of it) and is a fierce defender of Donald Trump. His Twitter feed, last time I checked, was filled with the usual white nationalist rants against Democrats; I’d cite some here, except that I’m blocked. His current goal is to become Chairman of the California Republican Party under a “Take Back California” banner —a seemingly impossible task, if by “take back” he means to swing California into a red state.

What
the Travis Allens of California and the rest of the country don’t understand is
how out-of-step they are with America. He may well win his campaign to become
Chairman Allen, but only because so many Californians have deserted the
Republican Party that the only people still in it are as white
nationalist-extremist as Allen.

People
hate the Republican Party not because we’re Democrats, or liberals, much less “socialists.”
It’s because we look at Republicans such as Travis Allen and see pure, unadulterated
evil. Oh, I know it’s not fashionable to talk about “evil.” Nobody except
religious fanatics believes in the Devil, or Hell; I certainly don’t. Those
concepts are theological inventions, designed long ago to frighten people into
submitting to the dictates of priests.

Does Ingraham really believe the crap she peddles? It doesn’t really matter, because the low-education people she preaches to at Fox “News” believe it, whether she does or not. She’s an authority figure; she has Trump’s ear, and so when she assures them that if they wear their MAGA hats and then go out and call a gay person a “fag,” or call a Black person a “nigger,” or tell a person with a foreign accent to “go back to your country,” they’re actually expressing “tolerance, kindness and inclusiveness.” If you point out to them that insulting people with racial, ethnic or homophobic slurs is hateful rather than loving, you get accused of spreading “fake news” and being a “snowflake.”

I’ll tell you where the battle line is now being drawn: white men under the age of 30. They’re going to have to choose which side to be on: the side of their fathers and uncles, who support Trump, or the side of fairness, decency, inclusion and diversity. It’s not easy supporting diversity. It means you have to live side-by-side with humans who don’t look like you, or embrace your beliefs, or whose cultural practices seem strange. Tolerance is a big word, but being tolerant is even bigger: it’s a live-and-let-live philosophy that allows every non-violent American the right to live, marry and associate with whomever he or she chooses.

This is what the modern Republican
Party cannot endure. It’s what most Americans yearn for: their better angels implore
them forward. And this is why California is the bluest state in the country:
because we’re on the side of the angels.

AS WE SPEAK, YOU, CALIFORNIA, ARE DEAD-IN WAYS FAR TOO NUMEROUS TO LIST HERE. THE MAIN CONCERN NOW IS HOW TO CONTAIN YOUR DISEASED, LUNATIC IDEOLOGY AND PREVENT IT FROM SPREADING TO THE NORMAL WORLD. AT THIS POINT IN TIME, VAST NUMBERS OF NORMAL AMERICANS ARE HOPING AND PRAYING FOR AN ECOLOGICAL “CLEANSING” IN THE FORM OF 1)A 16.0er COMBINED WITH 2) A 500 FOOT HIGH TSUNAMI FROM THE BAJA TO SEATTLE. THOSE OF YOU STILL REMAINING IN THAT CESSPOOL OF INSANITY AND LUNACY WHO ARE NOT COMPLETELY PSYCHO NONETHELESS DESERVE THE SAME FATE. AMERICA NO LONGER GIVES A FLYING FUSCIA-FLAVORED FUCK ABOUT A-N-Y OF YOU! PLEASE DIE, AND AND TAKE YOUR SHITBURGER WAYS WITH YOU!!! YOURS TRULY, AMERICA